So on Thursday, the crazy drunk uncle career politician who currently sits a mere heartbeat from the big desk in the oddly- shaped office without any corners went on MSNBC and said this:

It’s used to be, Joe, we were dealing almost exclusively with hunters. … There’s a whole new sort of group of individuals who, I don’t what the numbers are, that never hunt at all, but they own guns for one of two reasons: Self-protection, or, they just like the feel of that AR-15 at the range. They like the way it feels. They just, you know, it’s like driving a Ferrari, you know. So, my impression is, there’s not the same sort of cultural norm about gun ownership with a lot of people who are buying guns now.

Now we could (and probably will) get deep into the weeds in the comments section going back and forth about the nature of the 2nd Amendment in the 21st century and just how frightening it is that a man like Joe Biden could one day have his fingers on “The Button,” but I’d rather focus on the sheer brass of the VPOTUS and the underlying elitist mentality that shapes his world view.

Let’s take Mr. Biden’s statement and flip it around, making it about cars instead of firearms.

It’s used to be, Joe, we were dealing almost exclusively with hunterscommuters. … There’s a whole new sort of group of individuals who, I don’t what the numbers are, that never huntdrive to work at all because they telecommute from home, but they still own gunsmultiple cars for one of two reasons: Self-protectionthe bus lines don’t go directly to the places they want to go when they’re not working, or, they just like the feel of that AR-15 at the rangeFerrari on the track. They like the way it feels. They just, you know, it’s like driving a Ferrarifiring a $15,000 Barrett M107A1 .50 caliber sniper rifle into a 6″ target 1,500 yards downrange, you know. So, my impression is, there’s not the same sort of cultural norm about guncar ownership with a lot of people who are buying gunscars now.

Think it sounds preposterous? With the advent of the driverless car, over blown concerns about distracted driving, and the desire of many of our social betters to sacrifice 150 years of human progress on the altar of environmental purity, it’s not impossible to picture an elected official twenty years (or less) from now repeating something similar to the drivel I typed above.

Consider how Mr. Biden characterized those who he views as his main opponents on the gun issue: The manner in which they choose to pursue happiness is as wasteful and frivilous as driving a Ferrari. It’s okay to own a gun if you’re going to participate in an activity, hunting, that meets with Mr. Biden’s approval and, presumably, it’s okay with the VP for you to own a car, so long as it’s nothing pointless and wasteful. Minivans are okay. A Prius would probably be better.

It’s all part and parcel of the totalitarian proclivities of our elites. “Because I want to and it’s none of your damn business,” is not a justification for owning a gun or owning a “wasteful” vehicle. A whiff of this elitist point of view came out in the comments thread of my recent tribute to pickup trucks. Some people simply demand that their fellow citizens justify their actions in every corner of their lives. Perhaps it’s because we’ve all voluntarily given up so much of our privacy through Facebook and other social media. People think that they have a right to be in our business because we let them into so much of our business.

Nevermind that of all the reasons to own a firearm, hunting makes the least sense in a country with a grocery store on every corner. The same focus on the trivial will be used to drive the future debate on the ownership of private automobiles, particularly classic cars and sporting models. You’ll be able to take them to car shows and drive in the Fourth of July parade, but forget about emulating Chuck Berry and “riding along… with no particular place to go.”

Hopefully we haven’t reached the point where membership in AAA in order to protect your rights and privileges when it comes to the private use of automobiles is as important as membership in the NRA is to protect your rights and privileges to private gun ownership.

Mr. Hester, you have effectively said what a lot of us were thinking.
The rhetorical crap they are using to go after the second amendment right now can effectively be re-purposed to go after every single other freedom we enjoy in this country, from cars to cigarettes to bottles of soda pop and anything else that gets under some nanny statist control freak’s skin.

Balls. Honesty. Common sense.
These are three of the reasons why I read TTAC instead of Jalopnik.

Nonsense. The NRA and its supporters deliberatley misinterpret the second amendment – which isa about state militias (today, the National Guard) – to try to create a “right” that the framers never intended.

The reality is that no person has any valid reason to own a handgun or an assault rifle. Ever. And the widespread ownership of these weapons by unqualifed persons in the US has given this country the highest rate of gun deaths in the civilized world, without conferring any countervailing benefit.

And by the way, TTAC is free to publish whatever it wants to, but it seems to me that this entry has really nothing to do with cars or the motor vehicle industry.

There were no state militias when Madison wrote the second amendment. He meant the Minutemen who appeared on Lexington Common, volunteers who brought their own weapons to defend the community. “Well regulated” meant they trained regularly back then. The NRA’s supporters must include the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right, and they incorporated it, meaning that ruling applies to the states, not just the federal government. This topic is appropriate because the tire iron in your trunk is an assault weapon. My golf clubs and a baseball bat are also assault weapons. If by assault rifles you mean semi-automatics, they’re not used by the military, they can only fire one shot per trigger pull. They expel the casing and load the next round after each trigger pull which makes them SEMI-automatic, but they’re unsuitable for a military assault. By the way, the Republic of South Africa, Brazil and Venezuela all have much higher gun death rates. America’s rate is slightly higher than the UK which has banned gun ownership, and is about the same as France. The absolute numbers are larger, but that’s a function of our having the third highest population in the world, after China and India. The Founders actually intended that all free men be able to defend themselves and wrote the Second Amendment for that purpose, taking the power away from any government wanting to decide who is “qualified”. Self defense, to them, is a valid reason to own a gun or rifle.

Not so. The gun death rate in the US is 10.2 per 100,000 population. In France, the rate is 3.0, in the UK it’s 0.25.

The gap in homicide by firearms is even larger – 3.2 (per 100,000 population) in the US, vs. 0.04 in the UK and 0.22 in France.

On a per capita basis, then, for every homicide from firearms in the UK, there are 5 in France and 80 in the US.

South Africa, Brazil and Venezuela (I’ve been to all of them) are not developed countries. They have huge social and ecomonic disparities, a very large underclass living in abject poverty, and weak police forces. South Africa is also awash in guns (especially AK-47s) smuggled in from conflict zones elsewhwere in Africa. You simply can’t compare any of these places to societies in Europe and North America.

Also, I wrote of “assault rifles”, not “assault weapons”. It is technically true that many objects made for other uses can be employed by indivivuals as weapons, but it is a logical absurdity to warp this into a justification for gun ownership.

The Supreme Court did not find any personal right of gun ownership inherent in the second amendment until the Heller case in 2008, when a group of activist judges pursuing a political agenda swept aside ovber 200 years of jurisprudence to the contrary.

The point remains. No person has any valid reason to own a handgun or assault rifle. And this post has, in my personal opinion, nothing to do with cars or the auto industry.

@Lorenzo, the British marched on Concord IOT take control of the collection of arms and logistics (gunpowder, shot, et al) stored there for the, wait for it…Militia. Militia’s also had very little to do with the state unless called up by the Governor. Most Militia tasks were local. You’re statement is only true because Massachusetts was still a Commonwealth/Colony of Great Britain, and not yet a state. Militia’s were very much a part of American life when Madison was writing.

+ infinity again Mr. Hester. Please don’t tell me what I need, Master. Your politically correct college education that I financed has turned you into an insufferable ruling-class, intellectual-gentry, masturbatory, narcissistic, emotionally retarded, national-socialist, fascist bigot. Thank you just the same Mandarin Overlord, but I can make my own decisions. I should have known that ruining Europe would not satisfy you.

…It’s all part and parcel of the totalitarian proclivities of our elites…

Regardless of whether this is spot on or not. This is a forum about CARS. This was a pretty significant leap to wade into the gun debate and draw the connection and lines to cars.

I can go read about the gun debate – anywhere. I come here to read about – cars.

If TTaC is going to be a political soap box, then just change the name to TTaP and get it over with and I will mourn your transition. This is not the place, or the forum…I come here to escape this kind of noise, not have it put in my face.

Wow you guys sure get your panties in a bunch just because a blogger (who writes an editorial column, BTW) dares to suggest that out of the two VP candidates we had to choose from in 2008, we somehow managed to pick the bigger idiot. If Joe Biden is so misunderstood why aren’t any of you jumping to vindicate him?

One of the nice things about this blog is that I can have a rational conversation about cars with people whose politics and religion I find really objectionable. With focus on cars, that other stuff doesn’t matter.

Change the topic to a hot-button political topic, though, and the terms of the truce no longer apply….

It’s not like this is Breitbart by any stretch of the imagination, but if the idea of people with remotely conservative ideas speaking their peace every once in a while is that disconcerting to you, the Gawker network has what you are craving. There you can get news on any topic (including cars), while cocooned in a nice safe leftist bubble.

That’s hilarious. If you only want to see your view on a blog, create your own blog or find one catering to your views. I don’t see any conservatives asking for the removal of left wing opinions. You should think about that.

Sometimes, MPAV, politics has a nasty habit of infringing on the things we love…like cars. If you want to keep politics out of a car blog, then keep politicians (and govt. bureaucrats) out of the car business.

Well, it seems to me that cars, motorcycles and guns go together like beer, fried chicken and rock n roll music. Most guys like at least two out of the three. It would behoove us all to defend each other’s right to own and use all three, lest the Joe Bidens of the world have their way.

“Apart from the peculiar tenets of individual thinkers, there is also in
the world at large an increasing inclination to stretch unduly the
powers of society over the individual, both by the force of opinion and
even by that of legislation: and as the tendency of all the changes
taking place in the world is to strengthen society, and diminish the
power of the individual, this encroachment is not one of the evils which
tend spontaneously to disappear, but, on the contrary, to grow more and
more formidable. The disposition of mankind, whether as rulers or as
fellow-citizens to impose their own opinions and inclinations as a rule
of conduct on others, is so energetically supported by some of the best
and by some of the worst feelings incident to human nature, that it is
hardly ever kept under restraint by anything but want of power; and as
the power is not declining, but growing, unless a strong barrier of
moral conviction can be raised against the mischief, we must expect, in
the present circumstances of the world, to see it increase.”

I agree. Keep this about cars. I’m sick of the all the news stories about the AR-15, M16, M4 being touted in the MSM. Besides, I had some buddies die because the POS M16 jammed in Nam. None of my cars that broke down ever killed me.

Of course, it might have helped if the author of this piece had done his due diligence and let the readership know that Biden is a car nut. But I guess that would have invalidated the premise and subsequent rant/diatribe and chance to label normal people as left wing, followed by the baying sounds of the TTAC hounds in full howl.

From Car and Driver Sept 2011:

“C/D: You’re the son of a car salesman?
JB: For 34 years, my dad managed dealerships in Delaware. Mostly GM, but he did run a Chrysler operation and for a short time also sold Fords in Wilmington. He was bringing cars home all that time. I remember my senior prom, being able to take a 7000-mile Chrysler 300D off the lot.
C/D: Which cars do you most recall?
JB: I bought a ’51 Studebaker. My dad thought it was nice and calm, but it had that overdrive, and it was fast. Then I bought a 1952 Plymouth convertible, candy-apple red with a split windshield. I think that was my favorite. I had a ’56 Chevy, then in college I bought a 100,000-mile Mercedes 190SL with those Solex carburetors that never functioned. And I still have my 1967 Goodwood-green Corvette, 327, 350-horse, with a rear-axle ratio that really gets up and goes. The Secret Service won’t let me drive it. I’m not allowed to drive anything. It’s the one thing I hate about this job. I’m serious.”

He also has guns and armed security. Obama paid an effective tax rate of 18.4% on his roughly 700,000 in declared earnings this year. You can’t look at a progressive’s personal life to determine what they think is right for everyone else.

Is this what happens when you have an approaching deadline to make but no idea what you’re going to write about until 30 minutes prior? I don’t care what your political leanings are, good writing is good writing. And this…is not good writing. This is stringing together two political pet peeves in an effort to get something…anything…on paper. Start a blog for this kind of screed, or at least be witty enough to make it interesting to read.

‘Cos…you are from Canada?!
(In case you didn’t realize, I am just helping the author achieve his unstated objective with this article – get as many trollish comments as possible for a single article on TTAC…)

Not necessarily, I’m a tad bit on the extreme right but I pay little attention to religion. Not everyone on either side can be cast into a mold of political beliefs or ideas, people are simply too complex for such black and white reasoning.

Ha! I love it!
Also agree with your comment – The funny thing is, I see the “keep guns off my car blog because I’m a lefty and I’m scared of them” guys often trying to group everybody into little buckets to make themselves comfortable. I find that Mr. Hester’s comments are spot on, and I kinda weep for those who can’t see the scam being pulled on all of us by our betters.

Someday, some of these lefties may need this conservative, black, gun dealing Arizonan who loves rap music to lend them a bit of…em…assistance on the personal protection side of things, but I’m sure they’ll be too busy with their heads exploding trying to box me into some neat mental category.

Correct. I’m a social liberal, fiscal conservative (to a point), non religious (to put it mildly)person, who likes fast cars and guns. I think the whole gun control thing is a lot of wish the world was a nicer place fantasy with a lot of hand wringing guilt trip over the mass shootings that happen once in a while, and always have happened (read the old papers online) mostly dreamed up by people like my sister, who has no knowledge about guns whatsoever. Instead of gun control, they should think about the real cause of this stuff, a lack of crazy person control.

Interesting… I tend to scoff at the notion of confiscation because guns have always been part of my world and I have limited ability to imagine anything else.

But then it occurred to me that gun advocates have only a temporary demographic bulge on this battle because we’re still mostly Baby Boomers who came of age when guns were an unchallenged item of family property. And the elders among us received firearms training as a result of conscripted military service thus expanding familiarity with and appreciation of guns to those from non-hunting/sporting backgrounds. That’s a vast base of support for 2nd Amendment rights that is dwindling, coronary by coronary, as we blog.

” Well, Republicans are supposedly The Party of Lincoln, while Democrats have become The Party of Lenin.

How do you out-Left that?

Drop the pretenses of fairness and equality, and openly advocate slavery and genocide?”

My God. Do you actually believe this? You should read up on actual left wing parties in other countries. I hate to tell you this but your Democratic Party is probably father to the right than Canada’s Conservative Party.

While you were listening to Limbaugh and the arguing with lefty straw-men, the Republicans became increasingly marginalized and the Democrats became the moderate party of common sense. The Party of Lenin you hear about in your Talking Points discussions exists solely in your feverish nightmares.

Sadly, I have to agree. I used to vote mostly Republican, but over the last 20 years or so, as they have taken a hard right turn, it’s become almost impossible to do so anymore, except for the local candidates who I know personally aren’t lunatics. The Democrats are basically center left and it used to be the Republicans were center right, now many, if not most of them have moved into wingnutville. The sane ones are called RINOs and other nonsensical terms by the kOOk element! A better term would be, “Sane Republicans, like they used to be!” This skewed viewpoint is repellent to most people, and until they come back into the sane world, I don’t see how they will win national elections against any decent Democratic candidate.

I considered myself to be a Republican at one point in time. Like many here, I’ve come to the same conclusion- since the Republicans have moved into the Tea Party territory, the Democrats more closely align with my views. I’m not really happy about it, but I refuse to subscribe to the political theory that teachers and public workers are teat-sucking, freeloading terrorists out to destroy our economy.

Perhaps not as individuals, but the union leaders certainly are, and they funnel all of their donations right back to the “Democratic” party in one big orgy of kickbacks.

So the circle goes something like this, gov’t workers want paid regardless of budget ability or economic circumstance, their fatcat union leaders negotiate with the gov’t and extort gains, and a piece of the union’s gains go into the Communist, er Democratic, party’s funds while the Party leaders get the added benefits of securing voting blocks. Sounds like something right out of Goodfellas, but its so sadly true. Stuff like this probably goes on in the private sector as well but the difference there is its the *private* sector, and tax dollars are not involved.

Vote how you like friend because the Republicans aren’t that much better and I’m not proud of them either, but I will never in good conscience vote for the party of debt whores, draft dodgers, endless welfare, and Obama phones.

“Hmmm. I am a Canadian NDP voter. This makes me FAR to the left of your Democratic Party and I love cars and enjoy guns. Kinda wrecks your “theory” doesn’t it?”

Hey fellow Canadian, we are left wing relative to the Tea party maybe. But look that the broad picture. North Korea is probably the most left wing nation in the whole world. Is it just coincidence that citizens can own no guns and practically no cars?

I invite you this June 29, 2013 to come to the Greenwood Car Show in Seattle, Washington. In the land where the “war on the car” could be described as ground zero, where pot is legal, where the city of Seattle inspects your trash to make sure recycle and/or compostable material is not in it, where if you have a lawn and not a natural rain garden you hate the planet, where cyclists literally flipped over a Subaru during a critical mass riding event and injured the driver and nothing happened to them – you can see first hand how much the “left” hates cars.

I am always surprised to see up to 50,000 of Puget Sound dezins come out and celebrate all things horsepower, gasoline, burnt rubber and largely old Detroit.

I, somewhat facetiously, label myself America’s last Marxist. Statistically speaking, I’m almost certainly to the left of you. I drive a lifted pickup truck and own 11 guns, including a Tec-9 and a couple of those scary assault rifles.

This isn’t a left or right thing. This is an elitist versus the masses thing, it is a urban vs rural thing, and it is a statist vs individualist thing (which is not quite the same thing as left and right, though there are both parallels and overlaps).

+1
“Freedom is irrelevant. Self-determination is irrelevant. You must comply. From this point forward, YOU will service US.”

Locutus of Bus

I hear young urban adults who are proud they don’t own a car. WTF. Mass transit is inconvenient, expensive, demeaning and stinky. They don’t like cars because their lifestyle does not allow cars. To desire a car would uncomfortablely emphasize poor aspects of their lives.
I dare say they proudly hate gun owners for much the same reason: they must face that live in danger of crime and chosen forsake means to protect themselves.

In addition the author did not equate guns and cars, Joe Biden did. The author was just pointing out the danger in Joe’s statement.
Joe proudly commuted by train to D C when he was senator even though he got prime free parking. He owns one shot gun to pretend he cars about guns and one car for the same reason.

“Maybe they started seeing red and couldn’t read past the third paragraph before posting their conditioned responses. Brainwashing doesn’t coexist well with exposure to dissenting views.”
CJinSD looks at his post and smiles. He then turns back to watching Fox News on his television secure in the knowledge that he is not being brainwashed like those stupid liberals.

I wish I had a dollar for every time someone on the left side of the political spectrum thought they were making a salient point by mentioning “Fox News” (or, more usually, Faux News, chuckling to themselves about how clever and funny they are). With all those dollars, I might be able to afford to upgrade my ATT UVerse account. Because of how popular it is, Fox News is now a premium channel.

This asshole is so fucking smug, it is ridiculous. Can you imagine the outcry if Dick Cheney was constantly going around insulting a third of the population during his term as VP? The double-standard that Democrats are allowed to get away with by the media is incredible.

Gun debates are stupid. Guns are not, nor have they ever been, a problem. The problem is bullets. Take the bullets away and all people can do is throw guns at each other. It’s a lot easier to dodge a gun than it is a bullet.

Freedom. Freedom to drive what I want, where I want. As long as it doesn’t endanger others, and my ability to do so shall remain intact unless I prove otherwise.

Guns, cars. I use to be with this girl; she was heavily invested in politics. Like, going to the Nation’s capital for Nancy Pelosi rented room events, and $10,000 table dinners with Bill Clinton kind of invested. I went along at the time, and the things I saw….

“First they came….” Is the point being made here. You might not care about guns like you do cars, but in the end I think we all love our freedom, and our choices, and that’s the big picture being made here and I think the author here did a good job of presenting that.

Freedom. Freedom to drive what I want, where I want. As long as it doesn’t endanger others, and my ability to do so shall remain intact unless I prove otherwise.

Guns, cars. I use to be with this girl; she was heavily invested in politics. Like, going to the Nation’s capital for Nancy Pelosi rented room events, and $10,000 table dinners with Bill Clinton kind of invested. I went along at the time, and the things I saw….

“First they came….” Is the point being made here. You might not care about guns like you do cars, but in the end I think we all love our freedom, and our choices, and that’s the big picture being made here and I think the author here did a good job of presenting that.

First they came….”

This is a bad comment and you should feel bad for writing it. Requiring background checks prior to the purchase of a gun, a measure supported by 90% of all Americans, is not the same thing as stuffing Jews, the disabled and gays into the gas chamber.

“This is a bad comment and you should feel bad for writing it. Requiring background checks prior to the purchase of a gun, a measure supported by 90% of all Americans, is not the same thing as stuffing Jews, the disabled and gays into the gas chamber.”

No, this is a bad comment because it violates the much cliché’d Godwin’s Law. No one mentioned the Nazis but you.

The “mentally ill” who could not defend themselves? Those radical gays, or the terrorist funding rich Jews? No?

This has much more to do with background checks. That’s about the only thing they’re going to get out of this, which I’m not even arguing, but if they could, they would ask/take so much more then just that. It comes down to freedoms, and trust me, they want to be able to pick and choose exactly which ones you have; all in the name of the greater good of course. Or, at least this seemed to be the underlying theme at all these events I went too; I could write at least ten pages on those experiences, but that’s the main force behind it all. With good intentions, for the greater good, to distribute wealth, freedoms, and privileges amongst the people.

That’s just my point, what is terrorism? Is it what they told us where gentleman of middle eastern persuasion tend to attempt to kill Westerners for religious or political reasons… or could it also be the act of trafficking drugs from East to West, could it be the treatment of Palestinians in Gaza by the West and its allies, could it also be deliberate financial actions taken by business leaders or banks around the world to attack wealth on a grand scale?

That’s just it, what is terrorism?

Depending on your definition, you could make a number of different arguments. I personally don’t put the West up on a high horse, we are as guilty of various crimes as much as anyone else.

If “rich jews” aren’t to be blamed for anything in particular, then the definition of terrorism doesn’t really matter.
As a European, I wouldn’t use “rich jews” as a synonym for the politics of the Israelian government and I have never heard anybody do that, either. I have, however, heard plenty of conspiracy theories blaming jews for all kinds of evils.
And I am still puzzled what AMC_CJ’s point was?

I’ve heard some of the same theories, but I find the intelligent person does their own research and draws their own conclusions.

In your travels talk to some Turks be it the Christian minority or Muslim majority, none of the ones I encountered in college seemed to have a positive opinion of the Israeli gov’t (although this was between 2003-05).

I’m not really sure what his original point was either unless it was somehow sarcastic.

I just saw this article on leftlane that definitely deserved an article on TTAC “NY court rules in favor of Tesla bypassing dealers to sell EVs”….hope an insightful article on that can make up for the shortcomings of this one..

Honda, Toyota and Nissan are looking at a massive and expensive 3.5 million vehicle recall due to parts shared from the same single supplier (which would extend nicely to the piece a few days ago about how parts is parts more and more).

Tesla is talking about building a pickup truck AND is apparently at war with Sarah Palin (see, you can get your politics on but have it be remotely about cars)

This article is stupid.
It doesn’t make sense to compare guns to cars. While cars are essential for day-to-day living and without them everyone’s life would suddenly become much harder, guns are pretty much useless. If we took away all the guns right now (except from law enforcement and legitimate hunters), 99% of the population would not notice it. Yes, there would probably be a little more crime, but if the government also bought back guns from criminals, that would reduce gun violence to lower-than-now levels. After all most crimes are committed by poor petty criminals (see The Wire) who would give away their Glock for a few hundred bucks. Not that I’m an expert, but that’s my gut feeling.
Disclaimer: I actually own a gun, but still think it’s utterly useless.

How would there be more crime. Do you sir know how much effort it takes to beating someone to death with a stick. The gun is the easiest way to kill a person period. If the amount of guns existed as you are simply imagining, less folks would die because killing people would become to laborious..

That means I would I would have to chase down the guy and then beat or stab or asphyxiation. It means no more drive by shootings. The popularity of drive thrus in america tells you we don’t like getting out our cars.. It would take a great deal of more effort for 4 year olds to kill people.

We like guns because they do SO much more work considering the amount of work required.

“Buy back guns from criminals?” Seriously? For how much? More than they can get from committing crimes with them? More than they are worth for protecting their lives from other criminals? This is not a serious argument.

Australia instituted 2 gun buyback programs when they made assault rifles (1996) and many handguns (2003) illegal or greatly restricted their availability. It makes sense to do so, both to get banned waepons removed from circulation and to justify severe punishment for anyone caught with a banned gun or oversize magazine.

Oh, and since Australia banned assault-style rifles, they haven’t had a single mass shooting. Firearm homicide has decreased 27% (while population has increased), and suicides by firearm have dropped by 2/3.

Sure. Mexico has very strict gun laws. So, national gun control does not work. You are going to disarm law abiding people and the criminals will remain armed. You are condemning poor people. It is a classic elitist argument. You do not live in a dangerous neighborhood. You are preaching from Mt. Olympus. Criminals are not going to sell you their guns. We are not Australians. We have a different history, population, culture, geography and constitution.

As it happens, the inner-city neighborhood we live in ranks as one of the highest-crime areas of Toronto. It was starting to improve when we moved in (a trend we think will accelerate, due to its prime location), but most of the inhabitants are “original” and there is a stereotypically ugly rather large public housing project (with all that that entails) 2-3 blocks from our house. It’s a far cry from the leafy Atlanta suburb we left to come here.

So yes, we are quite alert to personal safety issues. But I can tell you that the mood of the populace here – of all socio-economic classes – is to get guns off the street, not to add more.

Mexico is not a useful comparison to any developed country. Apart from its much lower state of development (its more underdeveloped, actually), the rise of the drug cartels has created something akin to a state of civil war that may be beyond the capacity of the government to control.

Australia is quite another case, however. I have been there many times, and as a history aficionado I can tell you that its development and culture have many parallels with that of the US. Moreso than for Canada.

In any event, Australia is a quite useful case study, as a developed country that dramatically tightened its gun laws and experienced measurable results.

In business, I tell colleagues and clients that it is important to learn from the experience of others – far cheaper and easier than learning yourself from scratch. When people balk at this, it is generally because the lesson isn’t what they would prefer it to be.

ect, your endless patience and courtesy is a credit to your character. From my perspective, however, you are incredibly naive. If you think you can disarm criminals by buying back their guns, I do not believe you know a damned thing about criminals, and if you have never been forced to live in an area infested by them, then you have no idea what you would be doing to honest poor people by stripping them of their only means of defending their lives while they are outside of their homes. That is why I suggested you try living amongst them, in the neighborhoods and projects. See how long it takes before you arm yourself in order to preserve your existence. People have a right to live, and you are doing nothing less than proposing to strip them of this right.

Perhaps you will choose martyrdom over survival, and that is your right, but do not force your choices on other free citizens or presume you know best how a person may best protect themselves and their family, wherever they may live or travel. The “mood of the populace” here is to preserve the right to keep and bear arms as a personal choice and not allow others who think they know better to strip it away.

All motorcycles should be ridden with ATTGATT by law no exceptions or perhaps not ridden at all. All cars should be equipped with speed governors that force one to drive within reasonable limits. Also all cars should have some type of system installed that forces mobile devices to be inoperable inside the vehicle. Breathalyzers? Who really needs X horsepower? If it saves one life? Am I doing it right? Seems relevant enough.

(You’d think that an officer of the law would know that the design, manufacture, marketing, and use of cars is regulated so tightly that were such a regime applied to guns, well-regulated militias just might attempt a revolution. The comparison is beyond daft).

I never understood why the buff rags were so right-wing back in the day: David E. Davis, Brock Yates, Patrick Bedard, John Tomerlin (R&T), and Eric Dahlquist(MT). Airbags were stupid, at least until Mercedes embraced them as supplemental restraints, emissions regs were going to take the fun out of driving, ad nauseum.

Now we have a the same sort of article in TTAC about the Veep going off on tangents (as he is wont to do).

Then there’s this nonsense about “The Left” wanting to pry us out of our cars. For those of you who’ve never been out of flyover country, by all means please visit that hotbed of liberalism, New York City. You’ll see that the vast majority of New Yorkers LOVE their cars, even in Manhattan.

Now before you attack me for being elitist myself, I grew up in Pittsburgh (if not in, certainly on the edge of flyover country) and currently live in central Virginia, a state that likes its guns, churches, and pickups.

“Now we have a the same sort of article in TTAC about the Veep going off on tangents (as he is wont to do).”

As gaffe-prone as Biden is, his heart is in the right (err, “proper”) place. He’s a pragmatist, which is presently the ‘enemy of freedom’.

His comment suggesting that people “buy a shotgun” for home defense (presumably in place of an AR-15 with a 30-shot clip), was as sensible a comment that I’ve heard, but was derided by the fear-mongers.

This is the dumbest, most alarmist garbage I’ve seen masquerading as “commentary” on this site. The standards at TTAC have clearly taken a huge dive since the site started.

First and foremost, no one in their right mind is going to believe BIden wants to take away the right to own a Ferrari. But to equate guns (something that has the expressed purpose of being able to take life) to cars is by far one of the biggest logical errors out there.

David Hester- this site is presumably still a website about cars. You should take your pro-NRA drivel to a place thats better suited for it.

Its called a ‘slippery slope’. Yesterday it was guns. Today it is a $3 million cap on your IRA. Tomorrow it will be a frivolous sports car. I see no sign that the government ever plans on stopping this insanity in the near future. If you do, please tell us.

Clever throwing the whole gay marriage distraction issue in, but how is it not valid to ask where does regulation end?

Cars, guns, computers, whatever its all *personal* property. Feds could say well computers can’t be over X speed, or cars go faster than X to conserve energy on a national level. So say people go along with it, then it becomes well now you have to buy the expensive power supply, or you have to use the special gas [hint] because we’re not saving enough energy. Society complies, how soon until its you can only use your computer once a day or better yet… we demand the right to see what your doing with your computer… or track you in your car [hint]… in the name of the Earth, terrorism, national security, Facebook or Cthulhu it doesn’t really matter at that point. How far do *we* let it go before we stand up and say we’re mad as hell and aren’t going to take it anymore?

No, the argument is “If we allow gays to access Federal tax benefits as married couple, next thing you know we will allow illegal immigrants to access benefits, and then straight roommates to access benefits, and then anyone under XYZ income level to access benefits, and then eventually we have a tiny minority of people paying for entitlements for the masses.”

Gay marriage is just a ruse for expanded wealth redistribution. If two men want to exchange rings, hold a ceremony, and give vows of loyalty to each other, there is no law that stops them.

I’m not married, but most married people have told me marriage isn’t about love, its about the joining of property and producing children. You can do all the test tubing you like but the fact is two people of the same sex cannot reproduce together.

People who are truly in love, I’ve found, don’t give a damn what the world thinks of them and just live their lives together. The communists seized on this issue as a political opportunity, nothing more.

Again you’ve listened to intently to your liberal media bliss, not everyone fits into that mold, I couldn’t give a crap, who is with who, but the issue I see is the people who want to make such a big deal out of it, when it’s not, ok they like each other next…

I know many same-sex couples, more power to them.

Now if you want to talk about the states that have been voting down the issue, (which it should be STATES issue not federal) you’ll notice that even in very liberal states, California for example, it couldn’t even pass, now that proves with facts that there are just as many liberals against it as Conservatives, no matter what your precious msnbc tells you

I don’t see anyone in 2013 keeping the gays from loving each other and living together, where society draws the line is in legal matters as a joined couple.

What about the polygamists, are you going to get up and defend their rights to multiple wives? If gays can legally be married then I want the ability to marry two or three women and amass more wealth, going to champion my behavior or condemn it, old boy?

agreed Lantern42, and I’d never imagine how low things could go on this car site until I followed this thread which degenerates into a dismissive swipe at the legal problems gay couples face because they aren’t legally recognized as a couple. Gay people work hard, pay taxes, like cars, and yes have children whether or not that suits the brittle neocon elite worldview. These threads reflect the bitterness of an outmoded GOP fertility cult and its ongoing refusal to accept its irrelevance.And has nothing whatsoever to do with cars!

What is this incoherent piece of garbage? I read TTAC multiple times a day to get an insightful look at THE AUTO INDUSTRY from a different point of view, and to avoid the never critical, always pro-oem stance of places like autoblog. Signed in just to let you know that I won’t be coming back for a while… If I wanted to hear NRA propaganda, I would listen to Rush Limbaugh!

I don’t see what the big deal is. It’s a thought experiment. At present, guns are being debated in the political arena as something that must have a utilitarian purpose. Biden is implying that people buying guns for recreation that isn’t hunting are somehow frivolous, different, need to be noted, whatever. Maybe it’s a negative implication, maybe it isn’t.

We’re just going one step further and saying not that cars will be banned, but wondering if this same debate could happen down the line when driverless cars are more sorted out. We already have tons of safety features being built into cars to assist drivers and make them more disengaged from the reality that they are in control of 2 tons of metal at 60+mph. Unlike airbags, crumple zones, abs, and other safety features, these seem to be moving towards the holy grail of safe driving, the self-driven car.

All the author is trying to say is that IF we end up with self-driven cars and they become the norm, THEN those of us who prefer driving our own cars, whenever and wherever and in whatever manner we please (Within the bounds of not infringing on the rights of others and their personal safety) could be seen as these people who just happen to like and buy expensive guns just to relish in their features and the joys of operating and owning them.

It might be a bit lazy, but I still think it’s an interesting philosophical/policy question to ask. If self driving cars are the future, will older cars be seen as unsafe, antiquated, unnecessary, etc, etc.

tl;dr This isn’t about politicians who want to take away guns taking away ferraris, it’s a question about the future of self-driven cars becoming the norm and the threat that self-driving cars could pose to those of us who like to do things the old fashioned way (turning the steering wheel, accelerating and braking, and maybe even shifting our own gears).

Is Bertel away or something? How else did such a poorly written and ill considered piece of political drivel with just the thinnest and most artificial veneer of being car related get put on this site? Given some of David’s previous efforts, I am disappointed. I can only assume it is intended as click bait, which I have fallen for.

I don’t come here for this nonsense. Accordingly ‘Submit Comment’ will be the last click TTAC gets from me today.

This is why I will admit to not voting for you when the writer tryouts were on – that whiff of right wing paranoia. While your style on the page has pleasantly surprised me, the tone of this article only confirms my first impression. Too bad. Bertel and Farago and their worldview is barrier enough. Please, stick to automobiles. I’m sick to death of political posturing in my daily life. From my side of the aisle, you guys have held sway since 1980, and I prefer to spend my remaining years in blissful ignorance, as the more things change, the more they stay the same is sadly true.

Wow, way to polarize your readership. I don’t really care about David Hester’s political views, but now I won’t be able to read his articles without thinking about this paranoid rant. Too bad, as I enjoyed his past contributions. Same goes for the TTAC community; I’d prefer to read the comments without having to associate people’s screen names with their political leanings… tough to do after this article.

I don’t know if TTAC is going for click bait (and I hope this comment doesn’t play into that), but can we please stick to cars and leave out the politics?

Have the lot of you savaging Mr. Hestor actually read his entire post, and/or understand the author’s word choice and thrust? There is nothing remotely “right wing” about the article, and judging from Mr. Hester’s word choices, he probably takes issue with both right wing and left wing. Note that he’s tagged the article as “Just ’cause I’m police doesn’t mean I don’t have occasional Libertarian impulses.”

He uses V.P. Joe Biden as an example of the elitist mind set, and carefully notes that Mr. Biden chooses to equate driving a Ferrari with recreational shooting of the rifle. I do not believe Mr. Hester’s interpretation is extreme in the least, particularly his concern that Mr. Biden and his contemporaries believe they know what is in your best interest, and perhaps they would believe the recreational driving of a Ferrari is not. Or that they believe they are entitled to make that decision for you.

Boiled down, Mr. Hester is concerned with creeping government totalitarianism. Its a valid and current concern. We’ve seen the government try to pick winners by subsidizing certain electric vehicle companies, or to push existing OEMs to manufacture electric vehicles. So far, the marketplace is not purchasing in volume to sustain these companies. But it would appear our betters feel they know what is best for us to drive. Look at the CAFE standards for example. By forcing OEMs to manufacture, via regulatory fiat, mid size vehicles that get astronomic MPG, their profit margin is slashed, the cars are decontented, etc. Bottom line, the consumer suffers.

Whether its regulating Big Gulps, Chick Fil A zoning, Planned Parenthood locations, the MPG of a Ford F250, how many bullets an ammo clip can contain, parental notification about abortion, whether you’re allowed to purchase “marital devices” in some state, Ellen and Portia marrying each other, cigarettes, menu signs posted in McDonalds, free condoms or no condoms at a high school, and I could go on, somewhere, someone employed by, appointed to, or elected believes, based on education and feelings, that he or she knows what is best for you and your family. Often time this opinion is not based on fact, but on theory and belief. Such opinions by the above described people impact our ability to purchase, store, maintain, and drive the vehicles we desire.

Mr. Hestor pointed out a valid concern arising out of a politician’s statement. Its not a Red State thing, or a Daily Kos thing. Its something for consideration. Is it right that this country is governed by graduates of the same two Ivy League schools, or that the Supreme Court justices are graduates of Yale / Hartford / Princeton and not one of them is a citizen of any state not located in the Northeast? Please keep it civil, and remember the words attributed to Twain. “Better to keep ones mouth shut and be thought a fool, than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.”

You’re right. I leaped to a conclusion. However, I have seen the fruits of both extremes in my lifetime, and have concluded that neither truly has my best interests at heart. What I’m hoping for is to appeal to our collective better natures and leave the polarization to the places I prefer NOT to read. David has style, and I hope he will continue to write, regardless of the furor. I have friends who pray for my wayward liberal soul, but still play golf with me every Wednesday. Ergo, the Hester point of view still has an audience with me. My knee-jerk response needs to be branded what it was- ill-thought. My apologies.

No apology necessary. I wrote the piece to be provocative and you were provoked. I just hope that you and everyone else I’ve annoyed this afternoon will keep giving my writing a chance and keep participating in the comment threads.

Frank, the problem with your defense, as has been pointed out by previous posters, is that cars are already regulated to within an inch of their lives. All our lives are regulated, and we are nowhere near the totalitarian state fear mongers would have us believe. Or, we’ve lived in it so long, it just doesn’t matter a bit. Neither of which excuses the troll-baiting right wing propaganda which says that Biden is trying to take away our cars just because he is promoting a sensible addition to the multitude of regulations, a simple gun check that could save lives. What a revolutionary Marxist nutjob he must be for that!

The biggest problem of course is that in this article there was neither TRUTH nor CARS.

Is that the royal we? Not everyone thinks 2 plus 2 sometimes equals 5. Accusing Frank of a thought crime only shows the faultiness of your premise. You can love your cage all you want. Nobody else has to yet.

‘Could save lives’ isn’t a reason to mess with the Bill of Rights. There isn’t any real reason to believe it could save lives anyway.

You keep living in your unregulated Anarchist world then, Sorry to disturb you. The rest of us few hundred million Americans will struggle under the yoke of this oppressive totalitarianism.

Every second of our lives are regulated. The clothes you wear, the food you eat, the water, air, car, schools, jobs, on and on. Why shouldnt guns be regulated more? Because it messes with the 2nd amendment??? You’ll have to do better than that. Nowhere does the 2nd amendment say you have the right to an unregulated M16. Sorry, not buying that for a minute.

That a terrible argument marc, guns were put into he constitution to prevent the government from getting too big, well armed citizens, The gov’t should be afraid of the people, not the other way around.

By making an argument that the military already is much stronger, your argueing that the gov’t has already overstepped its authority.

“guns were put into he constitution to prevent the government from getting too big”
I’d like to see the evidence supporting that argument. Militia folk have believed that for too long. I don’t think all constitutional scholars agree with you.
We could debate each word and each intent of the 2nd, and many before us have, and many after us will. So this part of the argument has become a time waster and a distraction from the problems in Hester’s piece. So you just hold onto your beliefs in this area. Nothing on the interwebs is going to change either of our minds on this issue.

I’m guessing the very words of Washington, Franklin, Madison, Rutledge, for a few aren’t proof enough, you should read some of what they have written, unless your beholden to your beliefs provoked by left winged extremists and scared to step out of said belief.

“Considering AK-47s did not exist 200 years ago, I don’t consider them my right to bear.”

Television didn’t exist 225 years ago. I don’t consider it my right to hear free speech, unimpeded by government censorship, on that medium. Ditto for the Internet.
I think you should be careful about bending the Constitution. Someday someone may bend a portion of it you favor. Your rights would be quite different if constrained by the circumstances and things available at the end of the 18th century.

Your analysis of my defense of the article is wrong. The fact that cars are regulated to an inch of their lives is beside the point. The defense, or my argument, is that the elitist mindset has an improper influence on regulations. Opinion based regulatory decisions are something to be mindful of.

Second, define “troll-baiting right wing propaganda.” Biden has a history of saying dumb things and acting like he knows best.You state he is only suggesting “sensible addition[s] to the multitude of regulations, a simple check.” That statement is not found within the quote. You added it. Then you suggest I believe he is a Marxist nutjob. Try that in real life, it doesn’t work.

The quote suggests the restriction or removal of a product because a certain class of people does not use it for a certain use. David’s interpretation reasonably follows. If Mr. Biden believes that because a hunter does not use the AR-15, then it has no place in the market (the approved hunting market). So, its well within the realm of possibility that an official can call for a prohibition on the sale of exotics. Its been proposed before.

Its not troll baiting, nor right wing. Its a libertarian food for thought article. Counter the argument with an equally well crafted response.

You destory your own argumnet by saying “elitist mindset.” First, what is elitist about proposing regulations? Second, “elitist” is a code word for liberal anbd educated. And provokes sudden fear in the less educated, more right wing masses.

Yes, Biden says lots of dumb things. And I can’t even undersstand this one’s complete thought from beginning to end. But in a verbal interview, that kind of rambling is typical, especially from politicians.

The fact thtat cars are fully regulated is exactly the point. Biden is not advocating taking our cars away, as he is not even advocating taking ridicualous assault weapons away. He is advocating regulation. Which exists. Everywhere.
Somebody or some organization needs an assault weapon. But just not some guy on the corner. Just like I cannot go but some regulated drugs that someone else can. (Taken to a ridiculous extreme) I cannot buy plutonium. But it can be owned by someone or some entity.

Unless we want anarchy, we need regulation. Biden, though he may bumble and ramble really is proposing just that.

I don’t subscribe to your definition of an “elitist mindset” which is a) a code word b) exclusively liberal c) well educated and d) and by stating this it will provoke “sudden fear in the less educated, more right wing masses.”

My argument did use any connotation of the word “liberal. I touched upon many of the things that are the subject of opinion based regulatory attempts that cut across both sides.

Had I wanted to set up the liberal elitist straw man, I would have. I chose not to. Instead, the word elitist is used on its common usage, “belief that certain persons or members of certain classes or groups deserve favored treatment by virtue of their perceived superiority, as in intellect, social status, or financial resources.”

A diploma does not equal ability, nor common sense. I trust that you know many a person who is very well credentialed, with degree(s) from well known colleges that possesses not a lick of common sense. These folks go on to careers in government with that attitude. Its something to be aware of. Their political belief is beside the point. Left to their own devices, bad things can happen.

Here is a point to ponder. Judges regularly rule on agency regulatory actions. These opinions are written by 25 y.r. old clerks, recent law school grads. These kids graduate college, attend law school, and then goes to work for a judge. Often time these kids have no prior work experience. Do you trust 25 year olds with big decisions?

Less educated folks that tend to vote for Republicans are not provoked into sudden fear. However, they have every right to be guarded. When Obama stated that he was in favor of heightened regulation of coal plants, who does that effect more? The EPA appointee / bureaucrat making six figures, or the guy busting his hump in the mines? The railroad locomotive engineer hauling coal across country? The power plant worker?

A politician in my state recently said that regulations are a good thing, because then the business has to hire people to make sure they are in compliance. He is in his late 60’s, and with the exception of 2 years after law school, he’s been in government all his adult life. How is this employee going to be paid?

Elitists, and anyone believing by virtue of their station in life entitles them to special privilege, make life infinitely more challenging or punishing for the rest of us. There is nothing wrong with guarding against their excess.

“These opinions are written by 25 y.r. old clerks, recent law school grads. These kids graduate college, attend law school, and then goes to work for a judge. Often time these kids have no prior work experience. Do you trust 25 year olds with big decisions? ”

This is not true, by the way. There are plenty of people who go to law school with work experience. The average age of an entering law student at any top school is usually several years higher than 22.

I am not Marc but let me point out this:
You are not allowed to drive a car on the road without passing a drivers test. It is not being proposed that one should pass any kind of test for purchasing ammunition (the best equivalent to driving a car on the road I can think of) yet David Hester’s article suggests an analogy between guns and cars.
I don’t know much of Biden’s mindset but understand he actually is a car guy (doesn’t he own a classic pony car?)

The Bill of Rights doesn’t specify that the right to build, sell, and use cars shall not be infringed. That’s an important distinction for anyone with even a minimum knowledge of our Constitutional protections. All you’re doing is attempting to make an argument for stripping of us of our basic rights. At least be honest about your objectives.

CJinSD do you believe that any American should be allowed to own nuclear weapons? Because if not all we are arguing about is the degree to which arms should be regulated and not whether they should be regulated.

Are we not allowed to own nuclear weapons? I used to have a friend with a nuclear powered cargo ship. Unfortunately, it was built right before everyone went to containers. Some ports didn’t welcome it either.

i think your premise is preposterous. just because you have elected to substitute automotive references for the veep’s original language, should not at all infer that biden would choose to use the same and/or similar thoughts or intents or constructs to express his views on ‘your’ subject.

and i’ll take biden’s finger-on-the-button any day over romney’s. or santorum’s. or perry’s. or caine’s. or even donald trumps for that matter. or mccain’s. or palin’s. or bush’s. or cheney’s…you get where i’m goin’ with this, right?

I have a very left leaning friend who used to refer to VP Cheney as Bush’s anti-impeachment insurance. The theory was “Go ahead, kick me out. THAT guy takes over”. Every time Uncle Joe gets near a microphone I get the same feeling.

What a ridiculous analysis. His point isn’t that guns and Ferraris should be illegal, but that the culture of responsible ownership is waning in favor of owning guns because they’re cool, and therefore their owner is cool. Liberals aren’t scared of the kind of gun owners that everybody on the internet claims to be, but of the ones that make the news time and time again (accidental shootings, road rage shootings, etc.).

Besides, Biden’s said he has a shotgun for home defense. He’s also spoken out against owning an assault rifle for the same task, and it looks like he would ban those if he could, but not guns in general.

“Hopefully we haven’t reached the point where membership in AAA in order to protect your rights and privileges when it comes to the private use of automobiles is as important as membership in the NRA is to protect your rights and privileges to private gun ownership.”

So you saved the NRA pitch for last, huh?

The NRA is lobby for the gun manufacturers – that’s it.

I’ll give you another analogy – the lobbyists for Big Tobacco have for years been out there fighting for the rights of smokers to light up. Whose interests do you think they have at heart – cigarette manufacturers or smokers?

There is a significantly reduced interest among the young in both smoking and participation in shooting sports – these lobbyists see the pipeline is drying up and their job is to drum up new business. One of the many reasons smoking is slowly dying out is that Big Tobacco’s lobbyists were never as successful at donning the populist mantle as the NRA has been.

A red herring argument. The fact is that if the NRA were not representing the interests of firearms owners, they would not pay their dues. The simple fact is that they are aware of the NRA’s position on various issues regarding private ownership of firearms, and support both the NRA and its stance on those positions.

To continue the gun/car analogy:
Let us imagine that the constitution was written 200 years later and included the following in its bill of rights:
“Well-regulated transportation being necessary to the well-being of a free state, the right of the people to keep and drive automobiles shall not be infringed.”
If the constitution included this, would you be of the opinion that requiring drivers tests and drivers licenses and taking the license away from drunks and bad drivers would be unconstitutional? Or a step into the direction of a totalitarian state?

Well, I think that requiring drivers education, tests and licenses and revoking the licenses of drivers who commit bad moving violations or drive drunk would be part of “well-regulated transportation”.
What do you think?

Good point. Many people on the pro-2A side believe the text is completely controlling, that is, 99% of the regulations are unconstitutional. The problem with that, is that every law that relates to the the Bill of Rights and subsequent amendments is subject to some form of scrutiny. Whether its strict scrutiny, an intermediate examination, or whether it passes a rational basis test determines whether it passes constitutional muster.

A good place to start to understand this is to look at some of the first amendment cases. You cannot yell fire in a crowded theater, but can wear a shirt on the street that says “F*** the Draft.” Sorry to law geek out, but having a knowledge of how a court goes about analyzing laws and regulations sheds a lot of light on what is appropriate 2A legislation and removes some of the emotion out of the argument.

That’s what has me thinking (Pch 101 would love this, where-ever he is).

Its definitely an interesting idea, since you could define cars and guns as both tools but also both as toys used in the pursuit of enjoyment, as VP Biden equated.

From the constitutional standpoint, you couldn’t enforce laws restricting the “right” of transportation and thus society deals with any consequences. But I think if this was the case, society would adjust other laws to follow suit.

For instance in the case of drunks on the road, perhaps society would say all bars must close at 8pm in order to curb drunk drivers. Maybe in an effort to keep unqualified drivers out, society would impose high taxes on say tires so driving would economically be restricted without legally being restricted.

With regard to whats currently happening in the US, this is already in play as ammunition is scarce and firearm prices are already artificially inflated probably at least 50% vs Nov 2012 levels. You could argue this is all the “market”, gov’t getting on television stoking fear, or a combination of the two, but so far no one’s rights have been quashed on the Federal level

Is any restriction an infringement of the right? I believe not.
Otherwise:
Why are inmates not allowed to have firearms or even pocket knives?
Why can’t one take a loaded gun into a commercial airliner?
Why can’t everyone own tanks or weapons of mass destruction?

But that’s just the point, restricting a constitutional right is infringing on it. In the case of the US Constitution, if I as a citizen start printing up political literature against those in power and I am arrested and charged for it, my right of free speech was restricted and thus infringed upon.

In the case of prisoners, I’m not up on US penal code but I would imagine you surrender certain rights when you enter the penal system. Could you argue your second amendment rights were infringed upon? Possibly, but I would imagine the courts would rule against you given whatever case law is already on the books for prisoner rights.

I would imagine the same is true of guns on airliners where you could make a valid argument and simply lose, or perhaps in their case is a terms of service thing where you agree to certain things upon time of purchase knowingly or not. One of those things may be to relinquish all weapons, thus forcing you to give up your right by choice to use the product. But voluntarily (and temporarily) giving up a right for commercial reasons is much different than having your rights permanently removed by gov’t.

Finally, I’m all for tanks and weapons of mass destruction in the hands of citizens, in fact depending on where you live in the US you can own a demilitarized tank. But neither falls under the protection of the US Constitution’s Second Amendment.

200 years later puts us somewhere in the late 1980s, in terms of the Bill of Rights. Cars were a known entity by then, so the founding fathers would have written whatever they meant. We already had regulations on cars. Fundamental protections included in the Bill of Rights weren’t drawn from a grab bag, no matter how inconvenient short-sighted people find their inclusion to be. This is a straw-man argument, whether you know it or not.

I am sure you could have phrased you comment in a more condescending manner. Thank you that you didn’t.
I just spent an hour reading on Wikipedia about the genesis and interpretation of the second amendment. Definitely worthwhile if one is interested in the subject. Here’s a good Quote from the majority opinion in the case Disctrict of Columbia ./. Heller:
“Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms”

They basically admitted that they avoided looking at the intent or the text in order to come to the conclusion that they wanted. You’re merely trying to use one wrong to justify another, confirming suspicions of anyone that has ever observed the slippery slope.

In Heller, the U.S. Supreme Court stated that “[t]he adjective ‘well-regulated’ implies nothing more than the imposition of proper discipline and training.”
I think I am in favor of the imposition of proper discipline and Training for people who drive cars or use guns.

When politicians get their noses out of cars *cough * CAFE *COUGH* then car media will get their noses out of politics. The author of this article is completely in the right to draw conclusions he did.
Not every auto enthusiast wants cars to get lighter and more efficient. Some of us like our cars heavy and powerful. Guess which political stripe is the bigger enemy to those tastes?

I stopped reading after the first sentence. Sorry, but life is short enough as it is without wasting time debating Tea-hadists.

Instead, I want to comment on something interesting: Miami Vice.

As TV goes, it was pretty good. Anyone know the pistol used by Don Johnson in the first season? It was a Bren Ten, a CZ-75 knock-off that was chambered for the latest wonder round, the 10mm auto. The Bren Ten never did work the way it was supposed to, and the company soon went bankrupt.

Anyone know the make and model of that black convertible? If you said Ferrari 365 GTB/4, you’d be wrong. It was actually a 70s vintage Corvette with a fake Ferrari body bolted to it. The body was made by a company called McBurnie Coachcraft. You could buy a kit, and do the work yourself, or you could buy a completed “turn-key” car from McBurnie. Soon after the TV show came out, McBurnie was sued into oblivion by Enzo.

I love these comments, there was no mentioning of anything “right-winged” yet people still come out of the woodwork in flames.

There is nothing dangerous about an AR-15, at all”.”

The 2nd amendment is not to protect hunters as this guy would like to suggest, it’s to protect the people from an intrusive government, the government should be afraid of the people, not the other way around.

Defenseless sheep are easy to rule.

I also take great pleasure in laughing at people that would believe Mr. Biden in his comments about shotguns
He states that he has a shotgun for home protection and that he tells his wife to (1)leave the house, (2) fire two (3) warning shots on a (4) double barrel shotgun. (all of the parenthesis are for all the wrong things being done anyone with half a brain could tell)
Great idea, now while you just fired 2 warning shots on a 2 barrel gun the intruder can shoot you and continue on his path.

Criminals will always find ways to get weapons, no law can prevent that, but people can protect themselves.

And it seems pretty obvious the government does want to ban certain cars, they don’t see fit with all the regulation on the industry, this is hard to argue against.

What if, instead of everybody picking a fringe position and sprinting towards it with righteous indignation, we just adopt a model that has worked well for everyone?

I have a car. It weighs two tons and, when new, spat 224 HP out of its crankshaft. I could use it in a law-abiding manner and cause no harm to anyone. I could also use it for nefarious purposes and kill you with it. It could also be stolen by some a$$hat who could, in turn, kill you with it. So our government has devised a system whereby they staple an identifying number to several parts of this car, and they make me register and insure it. They also grant me a license to use it, a license which ostensibly indicates that I have had the requisite training to use the car correctly and lawfully.

Exactly none of this prevents me from owning and operating any vehicle I can afford. A degree of protection exists for the rest of society against my possible idiocy by licensing me to use the car and making me insure it against the possible damage I might do with it. Claiming that the government only wants to license drivers and track vehicle ownership so that they can someday come a take my cars away is the sort of tinfoil-hat paranoia that gives conspiracy theorists a bad name.

Why not acknowledge that guns, like cars, are dangerous and can be used to hurt others? Why not license the owners and track the weapons? Why not require the owners of these weapons to maintain insurance against the possibility that someone might accidentally be hurt by them? None of this prevents anyone from owning firearms, but it does assuage the fears that people have about the existence of weapons in society. Can we compromise that way?

Cars aren’t a granted freedom, founders were forward looking, they saw that as along as people held on to the basic rights that they laid out, that they wouldn’t have a problem with advancements in technology, these people weren’t primitive as many would like you to believe.
Unfortunately at the turn of the 20th century laws began being created that encroached basic rights. There’s nothing good that could come out of registering weapons, it wouldn’t make a slight bit of difference, it would be just as easy t o get an unregistered weapon as it is now, but would (conspiracy theory crazy theories) allow the government access to information of every legitimate weapon holder in the US.
As much as you may not like to believe history does in fact repeat.

Privacy isn’t a guaranteed Constitutional freedom. The courts seem to have determined that we have a conditional right to privacy, but we have to recognize that this is not based upon any right or freedom granted by the Constitution. The right to keep and bear arms is:

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Whatever your interpretation of the original text, this language does not prevent Congress, which retains the right to regulate interstate commerce, from requiring the licensing, registration or insurance of weapons. Maybe it’s a bad idea, but I don’t think it’s illegal.

Oh, I’m with you there. What the man wanted was universal, single-payor healthcare. He should have proposed that and let it be voted up or down on the merits.

I’m sure – Supreme Court decisions notwithstanding – that you have to do some pretty twisted mental and legal gymnastics to conclude that forcing citizens to buy a privately-sold product falls under the Interstate Commerce clause.

You know, I also understand and respect your point. I’ve never sided with the folks who believe that our government is out to do us harm. The government comes across, more often than not, as a bunch of self-centered, incompetent buffoons, but actively out to harm you?

That said, more and more of the government actions I see happening appear to be intended to enrich some part of part of it at my expense, or reduce my rights for the sake of making things easier on it. So, you know, maybe you’re right. I guess we’ll see…

I would certainly hope they weren’t out to harm anyone, but a lot of the people in the government grew up and have lived their lives secluded from reality. But you also can’t make the claim the current administration hasn’t gone after dissenters by way of audit, fed visit, or in the small case of the media attacking their sponsors.

They think they know what works but don’t see/care about the repercussions associated with.

The local golf course is going from an average of 30-35 employees previous summers(has 3 nines), to a maximum of 11(including superintendent), because the owners (run several local businesses) can’t afford the costs associated with the healthcare law.
That is one example, that’s 20 people (many high school students) that could have had a summer job that will have to look elsewhere, and pickens is slim.

Since the word totalitarian was used in the article, I would also like to mention this (from Wikipedia article “incarceration in the United States”):
“The United States has the highest documented incarceration rate in the world (743 per 100,000 population), Russia has the second highest rate (577 per 100,000), followed by Rwanda (561 per 100,000).[8] As of year-end 2009 the USA rate was 743 adults incarcerated in prisons and jails per 100,000 population.[4][8] At year-end 2007 the United States had less than 5% of the world’s population[29] and 23.4% of the world’s prison and jail population (adult inmates).”
And from a New York Times article quoted there:
“Still, it is the length of sentences that truly distinguishes American prison policy. Indeed, the mere number of sentences imposed here would not place the United States at the top of the incarceration lists. If lists were compiled based on annual admissions to prison per capita, several European countries would outpace the United States. But American prison stays are much longer, so the total incarceration rate is higher.”
The article goes on to state that the current incarceration rate is at the Level it was in the Soviet Union under Stalin.
In other words: Incarceration seems to have reached a totalitarian Level, yet I have the impression that US citizens are more worried about gun control being a step into totalitarian times than about how many of your fellow citizens are in prison and for how long.

Just because we enforce our laws better than other countries doesn’t mean we are totalitarian. You do the crime you pay the time, we have a great case solvency rate, and if we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt someone did a crime, then they deserve to rot in jail or in a heinous cases be sentenced to a quick and cheaply death. What makes matters bad in the US is the great treatment that our inmates receive and the amount of money we waste on the people in there. They shouldn’t be treated better than a barnyard animal of they killed innocent people or committed sex crimes for example.

But I digress, your really pushing the envelope by trying to somehow connect prison sentences to gun control.

“You do the crime you pay the time, we have a great case solvency rate, and if we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt someone did a crime, then they deserve to rot in jail or in a heinous cases be sentenced to a quick and cheaply death.”

try convincing honorable, law-abiding people that that is the case when every last stinkin’ bankster involved the ‘housing bubble’ which caused the great recession are all still walking free, instead of ‘rotting in jail.’ or when the republican creeps who infringed on hundreds of thousands of citizens rights to vote during our most recent presidential elections, while they were simultaneously expressing their hypocritical concerns to the media regarding fears about ‘voter fraud.’

I’m sorry but your racist Black panthers are democrats, they were the ones standing outside voting centers with guns.
But I guess you could also count the UN being at the voting centers as a part of the democratic mob.

“In Pennsylvania, an electronic voting machine was captured automatically changing a vote for President Barack Obama to one for Republican challenger Mitt Romney. The voter captured a video of the machine repeatedly placing a check mark by Romney’s name despite his repeatedly selecting Obama, causing the voting machine to be placed out of service.”

“Also in Pennsylvania, Republicans were barred by a judge from asking voters for identification outside polling places—a pending state law there would allow election officials to ask for an ID but voters wouldn’t be required to show it. These measures, often targeted at minorities, can cause voter intimidation and result in voters leaving polling places without actually casting their ballots.”

“Republicans typically support strict voter ID measures, which can prevent early voting, absentee voting, and can challenge voters’ eligibility at their polling place…”

“U.S. News’s Susan Milligan says these irregularities and lack of proper response from across the country are embarrassing:

“A nation which routinely sends election observers to other countries to make sure everything is on the up-and-up is setting an example of a nation that itself might need some outside monitoring. And it’s not because an autocratic president has rigged the voting machines or put political opponents in prison. It’s because state officials who simply don’t want people who look and think differently from them to have a voice at all are using their authority to get their way. An election in a democracy is supposed to be about someone winning with his or her ideas, not drowning out the expression of opposing ideas.”

“…Romney has a strong ally there: legislation being pushed this month by his fellow Republicans aimed at preventing the nonpartisan League of Women Voters from undertaking the voter-registration drives it has sponsored for nearly a century.”

“Across the country, the Republicans’ carefully orchestrated plan to make voting harder — let’s call it the Voter Suppression Project — may keep just enough young people and minorities from the polls that Republicans will soon be in charge of all three branches of the federal government…The Republican effort to restrict voting isn’t just anti- Democrat, it’s anti-democratic.”

“For all of the efforts that Republicans put into suppressing Democratic votes…this election appears to have exceeded the record high turnout of 2008, despite the fact that this year even more people had to wait on lines for hours, endured confusion at polling places, were told to produce IDs that the law does not require, and made to cast provisional ballots because of snafus at election sites.”

I live in PA and our local news put every poll at a dead heat leading up to the close. Then magically it was 60%+ for the Kenyan at tally statewide. I’m sorry people don’t lie to the pollsters that much and every channel can’t be wrong, especially since some of they used different pollsters and had local polls near 50/50 as well. The fix was clearly in and will always be in an electronic voting booth system.

Current party members and consultants confirmed the motive was not to stop voter fraud but to make it harder for Democrats and minorities to vote:

Wayne Bertsch, who handles local and legislative races for Republicans, said he knew targeting Democrats was the goal. “In the races I was involved in in 2008, when we started seeing the increase of turnout and the turnout operations that the Democrats were doing in early voting, it certainly sent a chill down our spines. And in 2008, it didn’t have the impact that we were afraid of. It got close, but it wasn’t the impact that they had this election cycle,” Bertsch said, referring to the fact that Democrats picked up seven legislative seats in Florida in 2012 despite the early voting limitations.

Another GOP consultant, who did not want to be named, also confirmed that influential consultants to the Republican Party of Florida were intent on beating back Democratic turnout in early voting after 2008.

[…]A GOP consultant who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retribution said black voters were a concern. “I know that the cutting out of the Sunday before Election Day was one of their targets only because that’s a big day when the black churches organize themselves,” he said.

Gee. So they used an unrelated context to try and create the impression that Wayne Bertsch said something that he did not and then quoted anonymous consultants. Since their credibility didn’t survive the one quote of a named Republican, I think you’d need to be easily persuaded to believe anything else in this article. The best way to tell what progressives are doing is to look at what they’re accusing others of doing.

Besides that having nothing to do with this article, I’ll stoop to address it.

The interstate system is part of the military, therefore it’s use is invalid to your rant, as it is required in order to protect our country.

Now back roads, that is for local government, federal government is what we speak that needs to be limited, local government should implement minimal law needed to help it’s people, and if they see befit to upkeep certain high use roads through local taxes that they believe will help their local businesses which in return helps their revenue; then good for them, otherwise dirt roads are plenty good. (I’m guessing you’ve never left the city)

Also if they were privatized then they would no longer have to take taxes out of our gas and registration (like that would happen) less taxes is always good.

At the time the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 was introduced, one of the benefits cited for the interstate highway system was the ability to move troops rapidly to counteract a foreign invasion. But many other benefits were cited, as well, and it is clear that the major driver was the need to build and maintain a modern national roadway network – primarily to support commerce.

All interstate highways are built and maintained by the States. The Feds help to pay for the sysytem, through the Department of Transportation, and use this funding to define and enforce minimum construction standards. The military is not involved.

Hester, I really, really liked your first articles. I don’t live in the US, so I don’t give much of a crap about what “problems” the average American is absorbed by, as they invariably don’t matter that much to the remaining six-point-something-billion of us. However, it bothers me that you’ve gone here. I don’t care one bit about the politics of this discussion, but I thought you were better than this.

There’s nothing political about guns, there an accepted RIGHT to the majority of people, the only people trying to complain about politics are the ones who have an agenda.
Cars are much more of a political issue then guns, as vehicles, roadways require billions in federal dollars to maintain, therefore it is a political issue, guns create revenue for the government, no issue (except the amount of taxation).

There is not sense trying to make political an issue on guns, yet there are people here doing just that for their own agenda.

“Some people simply demand that their fellow citizens justify their actions in every corner of their lives. Perhaps it’s because we’ve all voluntarily given up so much of our privacy through Facebook and other social media. People think that they have a right to be in our business because we let them into so much of our business.”

Been going on longer than that and you cite perhaps the number one reason I don’t care for neighbors and people in general.

How much different things would be if firearms were regulated the same way cars are.

-A motor vehicle sale does not require a criminal background check
-A person can legally own a vehicle at any age
-A vehicle can be operated in public as early as 16
-People diagnosed with a mental illness can buy a car
-People diagnosed with a mental illness can drive a car
-People with a criminal record can buy a car
-People with a criminal record can drive a car
-Schools do not suspend students for making driving gestures with their hands
-A drivers license will permit you to drive anywhere on the continent (even NYC)
-No one complains that a car involved in vehicular homicide came from out of state
-The media has not assigned a “behavior type” to certain vehicles in hopes of turning public favor against them

1) True.
2) Only with the permission of parent or guardian.
3) Some states allow drivers younger than 16.
4) True.
5) Depends on the mental illness.
6) True.
7) Depends. Chronic DUIs can be prohibited for life.
8) I got detention for making making farting noises with my armpits.
9) You must be minimum of 18 to drive in NYC, that is the law.
10) People complain about a lot of things.
11) Sports cars, high end luxury cars, giant SUV are all associated with a certain type of driver.

Comparing cars to firearms is like comparing apples to pizza. One is designed for transport/status symbol, and surviving an unfortunate event such as a crash. This does not make them exempt from bad judgement in use.
The other is built to kill or injure. Likewise, they can be misused.

If we want to stretch the comparison, then let’s make others around a non-responsible person responsible for their actions much like a bartender when a drunk gets in a car and kills/injures.
Is there any reason after a tragic event people come forward and say”you got the right guy”, and “we saw it coming”…really?
Disclosue: I am a Army vet, own firearms, (I cringe when people use the term “gun”). Ask most vets what happens when you use that term in front of your drill sergent.

For those of you that hate articles like this on TTAC the best way to voice that is to not respond. Many years ago they did a study on Howard Stern listeners. I forget the exact numbers but it went like this. Those that loved Howard listened for an hour a day, those that hated Howard listened for 1.5 hours a day.

The only thing that has kept me coning back is Murlee. Now, with this steaming pile of shit, even he is not enough.
This is the most misguided, inbecilic non automotive HACK writing I have seen in a long time. It’s a good thing your NOT paid for it Mr Hester as your not worthy of any payment. Total freaking hack job.

With this I remove my link to TTAC and all memories of it and this crap.

My god this comments section here has turned into a cesspool of bizarre rants, mostly by disaffected gun fetishists who think the modern Democratic party is a serious leftwing organization bent on socialism. Clue : it isn’t by world or even American standards. Get a grip on yourselves.

Most of us aren’t, anymore than we’re hammer, shovel or computer fetishists. Guns are merely tools that can provide pleasure in their use.

But I observe that fetishist noobs like Farago are popping up in droves as this debate gets more fuel dumped on it by statist control fetishists who do tend to statistically clump on the Dem side of things.

When someone says ridiculous things like “all registered guns will be confiscated eventually” and sees the entirety of politics/life through the lens of gun ownership then those people are “gun fetishists”.

Not, that I believe it will happen, but the possibility exists, it’s not ridiculous, unless you refuse to accept what history has taught you.

I mean look at news articles from pre WW2 where Hitler was just getting into power, even American news papers were blaming problems on the Jewish sect, and they were saying things that were absolutely untrue and frankly scary to look back onto. It didn’t take until we got into the war before they decided that it would behoove them to change their opinion and outlook to stay relevant.

Nothing in life is a ridiculous impossibility, when it comes to gov’t.

First they came for A, and the A crowd complained, then they came for B, and the B crowd complained, when they came for C, there was no one for the C crowd to complain to.

And the democratic party is by all means extremely left of center. just because much of the world exists in a state of government providing for the people doesn’t mean America has to be the same way.

that is a fatal flaw in your logic. the possibility also exists that the sun will explode and instantly vaporize this planet and everything on it. the possibility also exists that i will win hundreds of millions of dollars playing the lottery. the possibility even exists that you may eventually come to your senses. but i do not intend to live my life expecting any of these things to happen.

Vaujot: Except, of course, that those who supported the ordinances banning private ownership of firearms claimed that they WOULD reduce crime in general, and crimes committed with firearms, in particular.

Which they did not do. Therefore, the people who promoted them on this basis need to be held accountable. Replying that “correlation is not causation” is a dodge, plain and a simple.

The Clinton Administration, which was hardly in the thrall of the NRA, studied this issue and found that gun control efforts had no effect on crime rates. Banning the ownership of firearms by law-abiding people does not reduce crime or crime rates.

Geeber, municipalites and states have no hope of achieving effective gun control, as those who want what a city or a state makes difficult to get can simply drive a few miles to the next city or ocunty or state to make their purchase..

The reality is that guns are far more prevalent in the US than in any other country, and the rate of deaths from firearms is many times higher in the US than in other developed countries.

At the national level, gun controls improve public safety by reducing deaths from firearms.

Australia is a good example of a country that, like the US, had very permissive laws around gun ownership. Following a series of mass shootings, they banned or restricted aboth assualt-style rifles and handguns. Folllowing which, the number of deaths from firearms dropped dramatically, while the population increased. And they haven’t had a single mass shooting since.

ect: Geeber, municipalites and states have no hope of achieving effective gun control, as those who want what a city or a state makes difficult to get can simply drive a few miles to the next city or ocunty or state to make their purchase.

Chicago and Washington, D.C., had HIGHER crime rates than other cities without bans – de facto or otherwise – on private ownership of firearms. Also note that Illinois regulations covering firearms are stricter than those of most other states, so the excuse that Chicago is a victim of lax regulation at the state level doesn’t wash.

Other states and municipalities without these stringent controls do not operate in a vacuum regarding firearm ownwership and sales, but have had lower crime and murder rates than those of either Chicago and Washington, D.C.

Perhaps the bigger problem is that the Northern Illinois district ranked 90th out of 90 districts in prosecution of federal crimes. This results in less strict sentences, as, under federal law, an armed offender looking at 15-to-life. Under the federal sentencing guidelines, no one convicted of this gets less than 20-30 years. State laws aren’t nearly that stringent.

And then here there is this information:

“Only 132 of the 507 murder cases in the city last year were closed last year. That makes for a homicide clearance rate of 26 percent—the lowest in two decades, according to internal police records provided to Chicago. (The true picture is even worse; more on that later.) To put it another way: About three-quarters of the people who killed someone in Chicago in 2012 have gotten away with murder—so far, at least. “Those stats suggest a crisis,” says Arthur Lurigio, a criminologist at Loyola University Chicago.

“It’s a crisis every bit as pressing as the city’s high homicide rate, because the former feeds the latter. If murderers aren’t apprehended, they’re free to kill again. If other bad guys get the feeling that there are few consequences for their actions, they too will be emboldened. “The word has to be out [on the street] that the cases are not being cleared,” Lurigio says.

Given the record low clearance rate last year, more than 30 police sources, including current and former top commanders and 15 detectives, agreed to talk about the problem. These interviews—combined with the internal police data provided to Chicago—reveal a detective force that is undermanned and overextended, struggling against reluctant prosecutors and a notorious no-snitch code. Last year’s department-wide consolidation and reorganization, initiated by Superintendent Garry McCarthy, has made a bad situation even worse.”

Chicago doesn’t have a gun problem…it has a lax enforcement problem.

ect: The reality is that guns are far more prevalent in the US than in any other country, and the rate of deaths from firearms is many times higher in the US than in other developed countries.

You perform a bait-and-switch here. You start out by saying that firearms are more prevelant in the United States than in “any other rcountry.” But then you compare our rate from firearms death to “developed countries.”

Several countries have much stricter gun control laws than we do, but have much higher homicide rates in general, and higher rates from firearms in particular, than the United States does. Note also, that, many areas of the United States with the highest rates of homicide by firearms are more culturally akin to third-world countries than, say, Germany or Norway.

ect: At the national level, gun controls improve public safety by reducing deaths from firearms.

There is no proof of this…also note that, as a majority of states have allowed more citizens to obtain concealed carry permits, crime rates in this country have FALLEN, as has the murder rate.

The simple fact is that disarming law-abiding has not been shown to reduce crime in this country.

It’s also important to note that researchers who have disputed John Lott’s claims regarding the number of times a firearm is used defensively in this country admit that it happens about 80,000 times annually. This figure is larger than the number of firearm homicides and accidental shootings each year in this country.

ect: Australia is a good example of a country that, like the US, had very permissive laws around gun ownership. Following a series of mass shootings, they banned or restricted aboth assualt-style rifles and handguns. Folllowing which, the number of deaths from firearms dropped dramatically, while the population increased. And they haven’t had a single mass shooting since.

You do realize that the number of mass shootings in this country peaked in 1929? And that Australia has had a lower crime and murder rate than the United States for decades?

C’mon…. back when the Feds took pseudoephedrine off the shelves I freaked and bought up all the Actifed I could. It was the only thing that ever worked for my sinus headaches. Was I therefore an Actifed “fetishist”?

Casual use of that term exhibits the kind of inflammatory (intentional or not) vulgarity that’s hotting-up this debate to a disgusting degree. From both sides.

It can’t be coincidence that my fascination for the political causes of the Civil War is steadily increasing.

Summicron; I went to TTA”G” one time…and saw Farago doing his best Anthony Hopkins stare out the storm door with a rifle, and him doing yoga with a 9mm on his waist, all while his young daughter looked on…I wonder if she laughed as hard as I did. TTA”G” has to be as fabricated and fake as Hollywood hooters.

Farago is just another wealthy son of an overwhelmingly accomplished father who has never found his own niche and flits about from one obsession to the next causing all the collateral damage that only rudderless rich kids can.

He is a dangerous embarrassment to sober gun owners because he’s articulate enough to impress an ignorant audience of other gun newbies with a seemingly principled and learned edifice of advocacy when all he’s really doing is the latest in a series high-profile exhibitionist tantrums.

And I’d buttstroke anyone who handled loaded guns with such idiotic carelessness around my family. I pity his.

I am a duly licensed individual with a current FFL3 and a paid-up permit to transport and carry concealed and I can tell you it’s not about gun fetishists. It’s about the common man and the right to own a gun.

There is a lot of money to be made in buying/selling guns. All “unregistered” fire arms are much in demand and command a premium, especially in private-party sales. And they are kept under wraps until the law breaches your front door. No one advertises that they possess unregistered weapons. That’s what the government wants, for us to all to have to register our weapons so that Uncle can keep track of who’s got what.

This week alone I sold several weapons to private parties, among them an AR-15 bought new by me in 1986 for $685 and sold for $2000 (asking $2500). The airman that bought it happily forked over 20 $100 bills and thought he got a great deal after shopping around for price and availability.

I also sold a 9mm Taurus to a business owner, originally bought new for $249 and a .300 Weatherby Magnum to a retired Army Major. Made a ton of money on both! I made a little money and the buyers saved a lot of money.

And magazines, reloading gear and brass? You can pretty much name your own price these days, especially in the Southwest.

I sold an old RCBS press with a .30-06 die and 1000 rounds of brass for $800 and the old guy who bought it was moved to tears at the bargain he got. I know how he felt. The Die cost me $40 and the Press $60, a long time ago. The brass I got free from an old WWII training range here in the desert. For good measure I threw in an old polisher I had picked up decades ago at an estate sale.

There are all sorts of ways to get around this effort to register and/or outlaw weapons. For instance, the sheer number of unregistered and now outlawed Streetsweepers is mind-boggling! And illegal sawed-off shotguns, especially the hardy Mossberg pump with pistol-grip, are a staple in many homes, always ready to go. No one talks about them. But they are there!

People want fire arms of all kinds because the vast majority of Democrats want to take gun-ownership away from the rest of us. And eventually, they will succeed if the Democrats control all three branches of government. Harry Reid is the only one with common sense in a relevant position within the current government, but even he cannot fight the liberal left.

It’s the few whackos and criminals that misuse guns to commit crimes that cause the problems in our society. But that’s just part of every day living in a free society. In this age of diversity we also have to tolerate the criminal element within our diverse society.

Sheep and cattle are led to slaughter without struggle and if people don’t want to defend themselves then they deserve whatever befalls them.

Most people would prefer to defend themselves and go down fighting rather than have to rely on the compassion of the criminals. To go down fighting, that’s the spirit of the American pioneers, the people who built America and helped make it great.

That old whack job who took the firemen hostage so he could have his cable service restored was shot dead by SWAT. Hey, that’s how you deal with criminals and whack jobs.

Commit a crime with any weapon and get the warning shot through the head. That solves all the litigation and courtroom drama by doling out judgment and execution on the spot. No reprieves. No appeals. Matter settled. Case closed.

But the days of buying guns at reasonable prices are long gone now, thanks to the mass hysteria brought on by the gun control advocates. Now only people with real money can afford to buy guns. There’s no need for guns to cost as much as they do.

The gun manufacturers work over-time and still cannot meet the demand because people want to buy NOW before all guns are outlawed and confiscated by their government. It’s coming. Plan your life accordingly and based on your own beliefs.

By the same logic, we should legalize theft. After all, everyone knows that Obama is a communist, and communists believe that property is theft, so if we continue to allow the government to prosecute thieves, they will inevitably start prosecuting property owners.
Or how about this: instead of making slippery slope arguments, we debate issues in their own terms and on their own merits.
For instance, when a vengeful misfit marches into a school with a Ferrari under his arm and uses it to murder a bunch of first graders, we’ll hear arguments for … um … registering cars, requiring drivers to pass some kind of test, and keeping track of who owns a car and how they drive.
Which is why I joined the AAA. I mean, you get roadside assistance with a new car, but who else will save us from such tyranny?

Intelligent people can also make distinctions between different issues.
The logic of a slippery slope argument is:
1. There’s a debate about A.
2. B is obviously bad.
3. We can’t distinguish between A and B.
4. So A is bad too.
But either A and B are the same, or they are distinguishable. If they are the same, then B deserves the same treatment as A, and that A will lead to B is a good thing. If A and B are distinguishable, then A will not lead to B.
The very fact that we disagree on A but agree on B proves that we can distinguish between them, and the worse B is, the more evident that becomes. Hence the argument is circular reasoning, which intelligent people can and do reject.

This isn’t a leap into the unknown. The people of Washington DC have already lost the protection of the Bill of Rights because the court determined that other limitations on our constitutional protections have been accepted, so any limitation placed our our rights can be upheld. Selective ignorance and intelligence aren’t compatible qualities.

CJ: I guess I can withdraw my question, whether you’ve read the Heller opinion. You sound as if you think the supreme court is part of a conspiracy to take away the right to bear arms. Do you really believe that?

The impulse to be taken care of by a wise mom and dad is strong in human psychology and does not leave us when we grow up. Blaming other people for our failures and resenting others for their success is also common. People are also naturally drawn to power and love to control others. This is why the statist impulse never goes away.

Nevertheless, statism leads to totalitarianism and self-destruction. This was the clear message of the founders of the most successful nation in world history and it is the lesson so many have been taught to ignore, or resent. Thank you, American educational system, for warping generations of minds.

When one is so blinded by their politics that they can’t recognize powerful people with a penchant for treating anything they disapprove of as if it’s somehow tawdry and worthy of banning tends to be a bad thing regardless of the current object of their temperance vitriol, it’s a truly dizzying thing to behold.

“Perhaps it’s because we’ve all voluntarily given up so much of our privacy through Facebook and other social media. People think that they have a right to be in our business because we let them into so much of our business.”

Nah. Elitist busy-bodies and nanny-state do-gooders have been around far longer than the internet. Facebook just gives their bloviating and nosiness yet another platform.

“where membership in AAA in order to protect your rights and privileges when it comes to the private use of automobiles”

Actually, you’d probably consider the NMA a better equivalent. The AAA largely exists to sell people insurance these days. They’ve long stopped advocating sensible policies and are basically a lobbyist for their own business interests now.

There are plenty of ways to cook without the use of pressure cookers. No one needs a pressure cooker. Still, I understand that people have used pressure cookers for a long time in this country and many of our more primitive and less educated citizens live in parts of the country where pressure cookers are part of the culture. All I am proposing is that those people get the required training, pay a modest fee, be licensed, get a background check, register themselves and their pressure cookers in a state a federal database, and have their pressure cookers inspected on an annual basis, for the safety of the children. Every time someone proposes a reasonable regulation like this, the pressure cooker fanatics and the Pressure Cooker Association go nuts. I try to be reasonable, but every time I see some yahoo drive by in his pickup truck with a PCA bumper sticker on the back, it really frosts my cupcakes.